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Beer In Ads #17: Budweiser, The Hostess

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Thursday’s ad is from 1892 and is for Budweiser. I assume what she’s wearing was fashionable in the day, but I’d say that dress is a little too busy, especially against that garish background. There’s a small title at the bottom that reads “The Hostess,” perhaps suggesting this was part of a series? It’s hard to see in this size, but if you click through to see it full-sized, you can see she’s wearing a necklace of the Anheuser-Busch “A” and eagle logo. And take a look at the odd-looking crown and the red stripe below it. I’m no breweriana expert, but that looks very different to me, too.

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A Fermentation Question

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I preordered Michal Pollan’s new book, Food Rules, so it arrived on the day it was published. At 112 sparse pages, it’s really more of a pamphlet but I’ve been enjoying reading it off and on for the last few days. When I reached Rule #33 (of 64) it stopped me in my tracks, and it started me thinking. Here’s the rule:

Rule 33

Eat some foods that have been predigested by bacteria or fungi.

Many traditional cultures swear by the health benefits of fermented foods — foods that have been transformed by live microorganisms, such as yogurt, sauerkraut, soy sauce, kimchi, and sourdough bread.

Pollan goes on to list essential nutrients, vitamins, etc. found in these foods. He ends by mentioning that probiotics are contained in many fermented foods, which studies “suggest improve the function of the digestive and immune systems,” and may combat allergies, too.

So here’s my question. If, as Pollan seems to suggest, that it’s fairly settled that fermented foods have health benefits, doesn’t it then follow that fermented beverages would, too?

In Rule 43 he suggests drinking wine with dinner, while not mentioning beer at all. And the man’s from Berkeley, for chrissakes. He appears to be following the old reservatrol canard in choosing wine over other alcohol, though he admits alcohol of any kind can be beneficial in moderation, something that’s becoming increasingly apparent in study after study.

That slight aside, isn’t fermentation fermentation? It’s an anaerobic process (meaning it takes place without oxygen) in which chemical reactions split complex organic compounds into more simple substances. And if it’s good in food, it should be similarly beneficial in beer, wine and spirits, too.

Beer has been called liquid bread since ancient times. It’s nourished men and women since civilization began, and increasingly is believed to have been the very reason for civilization’s beginnings. Some scientists now believe that our ancestor’s tolerance for alcohol in quantity was an important factor in their survival. So much so, that quite literally you and I owe our very existence to the fact that we have an unbroken chain of ancestors stretching back to the dawn of civilization whose ability to process alcohol insured they lived long enough to reproduce. If that had not been the case, I wouldn’t be here to write these words and you wouldn’t be here, reading them now.

Anyway, just some … ahem … food for thought. Any brewers, chemists or scientists out there know if there would be any substantial difference between fermented food and a fermented beverage? I certainly can’t think of any. If not, I would suggest that Food Rule #33 be amended to “Eat some foods or drink some beverages that have been predigested by bacteria or fungi.”

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Beer In Ads #16: Pabst, What’ll You Have?

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Wednesday’s ad is a Christmas ad — because today is Old Christmas Day, when “on the 12th day after Christmas, Christians celebrate the visit of the Magi, the first Gentile recognition of Christ.” It’s also known as Epiphany, Three Kings Day and Twelfth Day. If I had to guess, I’d say this ad was from the mid-to-late fifties. The tagline “What’ll You Have?” was used by Pabst for a number of years and it appears it a number of their ads from that time period. Happy Christmas.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Fictional Beers

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For my first Top 10 list of 2010, I’ve decided on a decidedly unreal topic, Fictional Beers. By fictional, I mean beers that were created in literature, film, television or other similar media. I drive my wife nuts whenever we watch a TV show or film, trying to identify the beer on the screen to see if it’s a real brand or one the filmmaker’s made up. At least initially, all of the brands here were conceived and created only in the mind of a writer. You’ve seen them in the hands of your favorite characters on the screen or read about them in the pages of comics or novels. Some proved so popular that they made the jump to real products. So for my 21st Top 10 List, I present my favorite fictional beer brands. Let me know your faves. Here’s List #21:

Top 10 Fictional Beer Brands

   Spud Beer from Saturday Night Live
While SNL spoofed many beers over its long television run, being a potato fanatic makes this one my personal favorite. Most people seem to like Schmitts Gay Beer or ColdCock Malt Liquor, but I prefer “the beer that made Boise famous.”

Spud-Beer
   Olde Frothingslosh from the Pittsburgh radio show “Cordic & Company,” with host Rege Cordic
Olde Frothingslosh Pale Stale Ale might have stayed a footnote in radio history, had it not been for Iron City Brewery (then Pittsburgh Brewing) making up actual cans of this beer (with just regular Iron City inside) for collectors. The beer started out out as just another joke on Cordic’s radio show in the 1950s with the beer’s taglines “A whale of an ale for the pale stale male” and “Hi dittom dottom, the foam is on the bottom.” The first cans were done in 1955, but they were revived again in the 1970s, this time featuring plus size go-go dancer Fatima Yechberg (real name: Marsha Phillips) on the label and the popularity of the cans soared even more than in the fifties.

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   Dharma Beer from the TV show “Lost”
This might be higher if I was still a fan of Lost, but I stopped following the show somewhere in the muddled season three. Still, like Repo Man before it, I love it when everything looks the same, as if it was all made by one entity.

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   Heisler Beer from the ISS, featured on countless programs.
Heisler Beer is the most famous beer you’ve never heard of. It was created by Independent Studio Services as a prop to be used in television and films. A partial list of TV and films it’s been used in includes American Pie Presents: Band Camp, Beerfest, Bionic Woman, Bones, Burn Notice, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, Desperate Housewives, Dollhouse, Everybody Hates Chris, How I Met Your Mother, The Hulk, Malcom in the Middle, My Name Is Earl, The Pretender, Prison Break, The Rainmaker, Star Trek: Enterprise, Stealing Harvard, Superbad, The Shield, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Training Day, Two and a Half Men, Veronica Mars and Weeds. See Wikipedia for a more complete list.
Heisler-sixpack
   Olde Fortran Malt Liquor from “Futurama”
Also created by Matt Groening, Futurama had several fake beer brands on the animated series, such as Benderbrau Cold-Fusion Steam Beer, Löbrau Beer, Pabst Blue Robot and St. Pauli Exclusion Principle Girl Beer. But Olde Fortran is the one I recall seeing most often, so that’s why it’s number six.
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   Buzz Beer from the “Drew Carey Show”
Years before the FDA stuck their nose into caffeine and beer, Drew Carey was working on Buzz Beer in his garage.
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   Samuel Jackson from “Chappelle’s Show”
I loved Dave Chappelle’s show, and while he had many more poignant and funny moments, as far as beer spoofs go, this one was freaking hilarious.
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   Shotz Beer from the TV show “Laverne & Shirley”
This one may be lost on the young folks, as this Happy Days spin-off has been off the air since 1983, having run for eight seasons beginning in 1976. But all the leads worked at a brewery, Shotz in Milwaukee, so it sticks with me in my memory, at least, and perhaps those who are old curmudgeons like me, too. In retrospect, it’s surprising no brewery stepped up and made a Shotz Beer.
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   Elsinore Beer from the film “Strange Brew”
Given that Strange Brew is the greatest beer movie ever made (though I still hesitate to actually call it a “good” movie), it’s only natural that Elsinore Beer — no longer with rats or drugs in each bottle — should be one of the top fake beers, too.
elsinore
   Duff Beer from the TV show “The Simpsons”
How could it be otherwise? No brand so thoroughly explored all that’s repugnant in big beer advertising and marketing as Duff Beer has done for twenty years.
duff_beer

It was, as always, really difficult to keep the list to ten, and to put together this list I also compiled a more complete list of Fictional Beer Brands, listing as many as I could remember or research. Take a look and see if there’s any you can think of that I missed. Here’s a few more that nearly made the list:

Butterbeer, from the Harry Potter series, Flager Lager, from “Magnum P.I.,” Newton & Ridley from England’s “Coronation Street” (I have friends who are fanatical about the show), Pawtucket Patriot Ale, from “Family Guy,” Rocketfuel Malt Liquor, from “News Radio,” Romulan Ale, from “Star Trek,” Tenku Beer, from “Kill Bill,” and last, but not least, the generic Beer (like every other product in) the film “Repo Man.”

repo-beer

Let me know your favorites, and if you see any that you think should have made the list, please post a comment.

Also, if you have any ideas for future Top 10 lists you’d like to see, drop me a line.

Beer In Ads #15: Bass, The Drink Of The Empire

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Tuesday’s ad is another oldie, based on the label, at least. I don’t know much about it either, but I love the association Bass is trying to make. While it’s obvious that they’re trying to evoke emotions of pride, it still comes off a little colonial and warlike. Of course, that may be because I live in a former colony. But with the tag line, “The Drink of the Empire,” I think I’m safe in saying the ad is somewhat imperial in its tone.

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Beer In Ads #14: Call For A Valley Brew

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Monday’s ad is one I have a reproduction of hanging in my office, a gift from my friend Steve Altimari, who is the brewmaster at Valley Brewing in Stockton, Calif. Valley Brewing sells the posters and uses the image in some of the promotional materials, but it’s 50s advertisement from the old El Dorado Brewery, a brewery that had been in Stockton from 1855 until it closed for good in 1955. You gotta love old cheesecake.

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Beer In Art #59: Kitti Narod’s Rivers of Amber

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Today’s works of art is by a young Thai artist named Kitti Narod. He was commissioned by Chang Beer, the best-selling beer in Thailand, to paint an “interpretation” of their label. He came up with Rivers of Amber.

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Here’s a description of the work:

In Bangkok artist Kitti Narod’s commissioned interpretation of the Thai favourite Chang Beer bottle and logo, an exuberant fountain of golden beer escapes the confines of its glass bottle and Narod’s painted encircling frame to flood the canvas with waves of vital refreshment. Four mystically illuminated corner elephants echo the prized white Thai elephants of the brand logo. Within the painted sphere, the forest, river, rainbow and starry sky exude energy to match the eddies of the amber torrent.

I love the look of this piece, especially having just watched the color-saturated Sita Sings the Blues. A lot of art from this region of the world uses dense, colorful designs where every square inch of the canvas is used.

Narod is appranetly a self-taught artist who “creates unique paintings of wildlife with brilliant dots of color.” According to a biography on Absolute Arts:

Kitti Narod’s acrylic dot paintings are inspired by Australian Aboriginal techniques. As a graduate artist working on collage paintings, Kitti came upon the dots on dots Australian Aboriginal art and found that this spoke to him personally as an artist. In Narod’s work, themes from nature, flowers, fruits, leaves, waves, trees, the sea and sea creatures are interwoven in colour schemes drawn from the blue of the sky and the warm palette inspired by Kitti’s tropical sun. This exceptionally versatile artist also produces dynamic Urban Abstracts, collages on a Chinese theme and, in collaboration with his “mom”, cutting edge textile compositions.

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The Chang beer label, owned by ThaiBev. In Thai, the word “Chang” means elephant. Chang also has an interesting looking Thai Good Food Guide online.

You can see much more of her colorful artwork at Easy Art, the Magic Art Gallery and Thai Fine Art Online. You can purchase prints of his work at several online shops, including the X-Ray Mag Store or Easy Art.

Tasting Tactical Nuclear Penguin

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I had a special treat today that was completely unexpected. One of the beers that my friend Phil Lowry — who owns Beer Merchants — brought along to the surprise birthday party for Rodger Davis (Triple Rock brewer) was BrewDog’s Tactical Nuclear Penguin. I’ll have more about Rodger’s party on Tuesday, his actual birthday. For now, I’ll concentrate on the BrewDog beer. I had been very keen to try it ever since I’d read about it.

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Tactical Nuclear Penguin, on the left, in its paper bag wrapper. In addition to the brown paper, it was also bound around the neck with a simple string, tied.

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Removing the wrapper, we poured it into small glasses for sharing. It was nearly black in color with very little carbonation or head. It was not thick or viscous at all like an imperial stout, unsurprisingly, and also appeared thin and wasn’t opaque by a long shot. Swirling the beer produced nice lacing inside the glass. I’d read the nose was smokey, but it seemed more peaty to me, on the order of an Islay whisky. That was the overriding aroma, though underlying that was more subtle soy, a surprising sweetness and chocolate and toffee malt. And there was a bit of heat; hot alcohol, though not as much as I expected.

The peat character continues into the flavor profile, with plenty more going on, too, happily. Most surprising is that the alcohol heat doesn’t seem out of place (which it definitely did in the Paradox — Penguin’s base beer — I had at The Rake earlier this year) but works with the other flavors. Caramel and chocolate notes along with a treacly sweetness, licorice and a meaty saltiness, which combined for a very different, but thoroughly enjoyable, beer. It all came together well.

Though the two are very different, it’s hard to not compare it with Samuel Adams Utopias, since both made their reputations, at least in part, because of their extreme strength. I think the Utopias is more complex and a little more smooth, but not by much. The Penguin had much stronger flavors that lingered not only long afterward but even after I’d had other beers. Driving home, the peatiness was still with me. I say that as a plus. The beer really stays with you.

My overall reaction is that the beer did live up to its hype. I can’t say much about the price, admittedly high, but given its scarcity and what it took to create it, I can’t say it’s unreasonable. But as for the taste, it truly is extraordinary, like nothing else I’ve ever had in a beer.

UK Neo-Prob’s Go Nuts … Again

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There’s a great post today by Pete Brown concerning more nonsense from Great Britain’s neo-prohibitionist-leaning government flacks. Yet again confirming, at least to me, his status as a kindred spirit regarding this issue, Pete begins with this understandably anger-fueled assessment of the situation. This story comes at the beginning of the year, when people are stopping to take stock of their lives, but instead “the neo-prohibitionists go completely fucking apeshit, pouncing on the moment when many moderate drinkers prove they don’t have a drink problem by taking a few weeks off the sauce, and use it to ram fear and alarm down the nations throats as never before.”

Effectively, the tortured math from the UK’s National Health Service suggests that one-and-a-half pints of lager constitutes “hazardous behavior,” even if that amount is consumed over a week’s time! Congratulations to England, they’ve finally beaten us in being completely ridiculous about drinking guidelines. Read Pete’s post, it’s brilliant stuff.